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March 18, 2014

Open Your Eyes: 10 Uncommon Lessons to Discover a Happier Life

Jake Olson and McKay Christensen

Nelson Books; 206 pages

Shakespeare wrote that some people are born great and some achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them. "Open Your Eyes: 10 Uncommon Lessons to Discover a Happier Life," tells the story of a boy who might qualify for all three categories. Jake Olson, a Huntington Beach resident, is an avid golfer and varsity football player at Orange Lutheran High School — and also an author and motivational speaker who lost his eyesight to cancer at 12.

I have never met Jake, but some of my colleagues have interviewed him, and he sounds like a remarkable, resilient young man. Is that a case of being born extraordinary, or do achievement and circumstance enter the picture too? I will say only this: Midway through reading "Open Your Eyes," I went in for a checkup at the optometrist and realized, when my contacts were out, how helpless I felt groping my way to the examination chair. We cling to our comfort zones more than we care to admit.

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The most gripping passages in "Open Your Eyes" detail the co-author's world of visual impairment. The first chapter describes the days and hours leading to the surgery when Jake lost his remaining eye, and any parent — or person, frankly — may fight back tears at the scenario. With the clock ticking toward the moment when Jake would be able to see nothing at all, the USC football team granted him his wish to see a game up close and join in a postgame locker room celebration.

Well, what would you or I choose to see last? As you read this, your mind may be flashing through images: your spouse's face, the house where you grew up, a favorite vacation spot. To face life without vision may require an intense faith in God (a theme throughout "Open Your Eyes," since Jake's family is devoutly Christian) or simply a dogged curiosity about what the world has left to offer. Jake seems to possess a strong helping of both.

"Open Your Eyes" alternates third-person passages by businessman and consultant McKay Christensen with personal accounts by Jake and his parents and twin sister. Along the way, we glimpse the hardship of Jake's everyday life (he describes struggling to find his plate and glass at the dinner table, among other things) and also get insights into how to play sports by relying on non-visual senses.